The Alliance for Biking and Walking just put out its Bicycling and Walking in the United States: 2012 Benchmarking Report. The statistics don’t lie and as of the latest report biking and walking make up just 12 percent of all mode trips, while representing 14 percent of all traffic fatalities, yet only receive 1.6 percent of federal transportation funding, shown in the diagram to the right.
The numbers give a sense of the disparity of federal transportation funding that’s dedicated to bike and pedestrian improvements. As a nation, we must improve the amount of transportation trips taken by bike or by walking. With the current reality that only 12 percent of all transportation trips are by bike or walking, yet represent 14 percent of all transportation-related deaths there absolutely needs to be an improvement. With recent threats in the way of government policy that may cut bike and pedestrian funding even further by possibly eliminating resources such as the transportation enhancements and the safe routes to school program, the time to act is now.
Specifically in New York State, the statistics are quite alarming, shown in the diagram below: (Click to Enlarge)
- In looking at the diagram, some alarming realities exist for New York. First off, both New York State and New York City rank highest for state and cities nation-wide by having the highest percent of transportation fatalities that are pedestrians. New York State as a whole had 23.6 percent of transportation fatalities as pedestrian, and New York City had a staggering 53.9 percent.
- New York Sate also ranked the lowest in the nation, along with Nevada, as contributing the lowest percent of federal transportation dollars to biking and walking at just 0.1%.
- New York City ranked the lowest in the nation in providing per-capita funding to biking and walking at just $0.03, while the national average is $2.17